Early termination of my contract?

[DragonsAdept]

I went with the two year contract thing in exchange for a new iPhone 5c on the More Everything plan.

I know what my potential ETF is.

What would the status of my iPhone 5c be?

Is there any charge or fee if I do keep it?

Am I obligated to return it and is there any charge or fee associated with the return?

Would it even be worth keeping?

Are there any special provisions where I would not be charged any early termination fees or any associated charges whatsoever because of the problems I'm having with the service?

Since I joined Verizon Wireless in October of 2014 my service has been far below acceptable standards. My iPhone has been useless for making and receiving calls at my home. The one place I absolutely need my phone to work reliably and it doesn't. I have to forward my calls to my landline. This is despite the fact that I'm in the middle of Cell Phone Tower Heaven and I am surrounded by cell towers in all directions and some are within 1 - 2 miles of my location. Not to mention that Verizon advertises as a primary selling feature and touting facts that their coverage is the most extensive and comprehensive in the country. But of course Verizon Wireless would never guarantee that in any way.

The only solution offered was for me to purchase an expensive and ridiculously complicated piece of equipment that turns my expensive Verizon Wireless service and nice iPhone into a cheap VOIP product. Plus I would have little to no control over who can and can't use this device that uses my router that I own, that uses my bandwidth over my internet connection that I already pay for. Not too mention that I already have enough devices that use my router. Total BS.

My voice mail has had constant problems with delays. I have called more than once about this problem, it gets solved but only for a couple of days then it's right back to this nonsense. Far too often my voice mails, some of them extremely important, have been delayed by hours, days, up to as much as 5 days. This is outrageous and totally unacceptable.

Push notifications has never worked, not for any app. If say I want to be notified when an e-mail comes in, it's not going to happen. I have to do it manually or use Fetch by schedule, which drains the battery faster. When I do get any kind of message, the notification sounds are delayed up to as much as 30 or more seconds. Often I have gotten an e-mail, opened it, read it, and started writing a reply and then the notification sound plays. This occurs on my both my iPhone 5c and iPad 4th Gen.

From my perspective, Verizon Wireless has failed to live up to their end of the agreement, and after almost 10 months of paying for a service that doesn't work I'm done wasting my money and I want out.

[vzw_customer_support]

DragonsAdept,

Our goal is to be able to provide you with the service you deserve. This is definitely not the service experience that we wanted for you. Wireless devices use radio transmissions; therefore many factors can play a part in how your device receives our signals. Some factors include terrain, foliage, weather and buildings. It becomes more difficult to guarantee service inside a building because there are different types of materials used in the structure, some that restrict signals more than others. 

Let us review  your area to detemine that all solutions have been offered.  Please provide  your zip code in question.

Here to help.

YareliM_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport
If my response answered your question please click the "Correct Answer" button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

[DragonsAdept]

The problems I described and am experiencing have been examined many times by VZ Wireless and they have not been resolved. The immediate area I live was determined to be 'Marginal' at best by Verizon, and that was the end of it. It is a dead zone of approximately 1000' to 1500'. There's not much of a difference if I am inside our outside. However, this is endemic only to Verizon services. Other service providers seem to work just fine. Signal degradation inside certain buildings is normal and to be expected no matter the service provider. However the case, I am not going to spend a couple hundred of dollars for a piece of propriety equipment that would be very difficult to integrate into my network system, would have no control over, and I understand it uses something as unreliable as GPS to function properly.

As for the random and far too often voice mail delays, I can't have that. This too has been looked into a number of times and has not been solved.

I've been dealing with far too many problems with my VZ Wireless service since the first week I joined, and after almost 10 months of this I'm tired of having to deal with these problems, and I'm tired of getting the same old canned responses and nothing gets solved. Not to mention that my bill has gone up. I had to cancel my phone protection plan because of that and no sooner than I had done that, my bill went up again. That was the final straw.

It's time for me to go, and for VZ Wireless to let me out of my contract gracefully. If anything, VZ Wireless should be compensating me for the past 10 months of sub-standard service.

[Snn5]

DragonsAdept wrote:

What would the status of my iPhone 5c be?

Is there any charge or fee if I do keep it?

Am I obligated to return it and is there any charge or fee associated with the return?

Would it even be worth keeping?

Once the ETF is paid, it's your phone to keep or sell.

Are there any special provisions where I would not be charged any early termination fees or any associated charges whatsoever because of the problems I'm having with the service?

No.

[vzw_customer_support]

DragonsAdept,

I am truly sorry to hear of your service issues. To clarify, were you informed that your area was a "marginal" coverage due to a ticket that was filed regarding your service issues? The delays with your voicemail can be a direct result of your service issues as the iPhone does require a connection to data to access the voicemails.

LindseyT_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport
If my response answered your question please click the "Correct Answer" button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

[sprmankalel]

Sounds like the issues you are having with notifications are Apple's problem and not Verizon. They are device issues and since they happen to your phone AND iPad I would say an iOS issue.

You certainly can control who uses the network extender. It can be closed (I believe) or the signal can be adjusted. Do you not get unlimited use on your home internet? If so, then there shouldn't be an issue. Also, forwarding to your landline is the best option anyway. You will not get out of contract free and clear because of service inside of your home. The sere is no guarantee of coverage inside of any structure. You could have a cell tower in your back yard but if the structure doesn't allow the signal through then that isn't Verizon's fault.

[Weth · Accepted solution]

DragonsAdept wrote:

However the case, I am not going to spend a couple hundred of dollars for a piece of propriety equipment that would be very difficult to integrate into my network system, would have no control over, and I understand it uses something as unreliable as GPS to function properly.

GPS is so unreliable, airplanes use it, and you just plug it into your router, how is that "difficult".  The signal will not bleed far from your walls so your concern everyone is going to use my bandwidth is not accurate either.  So basically it is the fact you must pay for it, fair enough, but the other melodramatic reasons don't belong as reasons. And you do realize, most of telecommunications is either already using VoIP or is headed there.

[DragonsAdept]

Why the hell not? People on other service providers have no problems at all sending or receiving calls at my location, either inside or outside. Why should I have to resort to expensive devices and call forwarding? That's not what I agreed to or pay for.

Notification problems are only annoying. The main issue is with my voice mails being delayed. I suppose that's Apple's fault too?

I may have unlimited use on my home internet BUT I do not have unlimited bandwidth, unlimited ports, or unlimited WiFi resources.

[DragonsAdept]

The GPS that airplanes, ships, and the military use is nowhere near the same thing as your everyday consumer grade device. Oh yes, the GPS devices I have works just great and never cuts out,  no signal drops, and never fails during a storm, a blizzard, or heavy cloud cover and is always 100% accurate. Wanna buy a dot matrix printer for $250.00?

You are apparently a network genius, Tell me Einstein, how the F am I going to plug a freaking cable into my router when all the ports are used? You don't know what you're talking about, you have no clue as to how many and what type of devices I have, what hardware I have, how it's used, or my location and what's around me. I'm in a very active area.

[DragonsAdept]

I'm done here, and with VZ Wireless. I can do better with both, even if I have to go with another service provider that offers to cover any ETF. The bottom line is I need a service that works where I need it to work and doesn't mess with my voicemails.